BOU AVENUEObservation Peak
With exceptionally nice weather on 22 October 2005, I headed to the
Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park to scramble up Observation Peak.
Much of the upper mountain was plastered with snow, and I had some
concerns about possible avalanche danger, especially on the slopes just
below the false summit. I decided to take a less-direct line
further south of Alan Kane's normal route. Starting down the old
road at 1:34 PM, I took off into the trees where the road bends left.
I eventually gained the drainage south of Kane's route and followed it up
to tree line. Keeping right of the cliffs about halfway up, I
continued along a snow-covered ridge until I could see some big rock bands
guarding the false summit's south side. There is a break to the
left of these rock bands, and I had to venture onto avalanche-prone
terrain to get through the break. Luckily, the snow was stable
enough to ascend, and I was soon back on safer ground. Except for
one knife-edged section made tricky by all the snow, I had no problems
trudging up to the false summit at 4:55 PM. From there, it took me
another 35 minutes to hike to the true summit.

The chilly wind and
lateness of the day prompted me to get moving after only seven minutes at
the summit, and I was back at the false summit by 6:10 PM.
Descending the break in the rock bands, I glissaded down the aforementioned
avalanche-prone terrain and in the process triggered a small slide that
went crashing over the cliffs below. After that, I angled back over
to my ascent route and plunge-stepped the rest of the way down to the
drainage. An easy plod out had me back at my car by 7:21 PM.

This is Observation Peak as seen from
the parking area. The true summit is the flat top at left.

Here are Caldron Peak and Peyto Lake
as seen from the lower slopes of Observation Peak.

These are the "short cliffs" about
halfway up the mountain as described by Kane.

Further up the slope, Mount Forbes
(left) can be seen to the northwest. At right is Howse Peak.

Sonny works his way up to the false
summit.

This is the view of the true summit
(left) from the false summit.

Sonny trudges along the very broad
summit ridge. At left on the horizon is Mount Willingdon.